Where Are You?
by MysticJadeShoe
Summary: Christmas is always great at Grimmauld Place; at least, for some people. NOT SLASH. Oneshot.


_**I do not own JKR or Harry Potter, but I wish I did. [WIELDING MALLET]**_

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Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. Probably one of the most depressing places on earth...except around Christmastime.

Sirius half ran, half skipped past Harry, flying down the hall and holding a Father Christmas hat in his hands. The flash of white showed that there was a grin pasted on his usually hollow, sad face.

Hermione spun around in surprise, trying unsuccessfully to follow him with her eyes as a cackling flash of black flew down the hall. Ron chuckled; Harry smiled.

"He's so much more...cheery, isn't he?" Harry asked them.

"Oh, yeah," said Ron, also smiling. "I like this new Sirius. The old one's kind of...depressing, if you know what I mean."

Hermione nodded. "It's good to see him smiling once in a while. The emptiness is gone."

"He sings now, for Merlin's sake," Ron replied.

Harry nodded - they could all hear "God Rest Ye, Merry Hippogriffs" echoing faintly down the hall again. He sighed. This was the best few weeks leading up to Christmas he had ever had. Grimmauld Place had a homey atmosphere he had never felt anywhere besides Hogwarts.

A few hours later, the distant chill outside was driven back by a hot fire in the grate. Harry currently held his hands to it to banish the dank cold that had creeped through his fingers during his snowball fight with Ron, Fred, George and Ginny. He grinned when he remembered Ginny's triumphant glare when she nailed him on the face with a snowball. Harry grabbed the edge of his scarf and wiped some snow off of his glasses.

He removed his coat and hung it on one of the pegs in the hall, rubbing his arms to restore feeling. It had been really cold out there, and Fred and George were fast with snowballs. After a while, Harry had given up and left Ron and Ginny to hold down the fort. He expected Hermione was sitting somewhere cozy by a fire, reading yet another book.

That's when he noticed that the house was strangely empty.

"Hello?" he asked, his voice reverberating through the house. No one replied. Something collapsed in the pit of his stomach - where was Sirius?

Frantically, he started dashing through the halls, opening doors to various rooms and looking in them anxiously for his godfather's face. Room after room sped past Harry's nose with no sign of Sirius anywhere. He started to feel sick, flitting about the house like a diseased budgerigar for a half an hour.

Where is he? he thought frantically.

Hopelessly, he tried a door and peered inside. In the room was the Christmas tree, five feet taller than Harry, glowing with a golden light due to the enchanted star on the top. The tree was adorned in cheery red ribbons, blue baubles, live fairies, and pictures of the members of the Order of the Phoenix, along with some of the other people.

In them, Ron and Hermione were having an argument. Harry was skipping lackadaisically through other pictures while Remus was chasing him. Tonks and Mad-Eye were talking about something and laughing. Fred and George were repeatedly stepping into Snape's photo and doing mean things to him, like giving him wedgies or wet willies. Ginny was racing Charlie, and winning. Bill and Fleur were having a thumb war. Molly and Arthur were snogging. A witch named Morrigan was asleep, black witch s had skewed at a funny angle from her head. Sirius was participating in every activity, sometimes poking Snape and sometimes offering a word or two to Tonks and Mad-Eye's conversation.

And there was the real Sirius - Harry breathed a sigh of relief - silhouetted by the golden light, staring at the activity in the small pictures. A smile quirked his face when Harry slipped through Remus' clutches yet again, poking Ginny on the shoulder as they ran past each other. Charlie had stopped in Morrigan's picture, panting and out of breath; Morrie snorted and woke up, cordially greeting him in her silly, quirky way.

Fred daringly whacked Snape upside the head. Snape lost his temper and started chasing them both as Harry walked into the room. Tonks tripped (and Moody laughed at her) for the tenth time. Harry snickered and walked up to the tree, observing their picture.

"Makes you wonder what they're talking about, doesn't it?" he asked, turning to look at Sirius. He laughed.

"No. I don't ever want to know what they're talking about," he replied, truthfully. "Usually it's a topic only they truly understand. If it's something anyone can understand, run away with your hands over your ears."

Harry snorted, holding Tonks and Mad-Eye's photograph. He put it back in its place on the tree, surveying the activities of the doubles of people he knew. Remus eventually gave up chasing Harry's double and collapsed in Sirius' empty photo, panting. Fleur defeated Bill in their thumb war. Sirius had strayed into Ron and Hermione's photo and, with a mischevious grin on his face, turned into a dog and ran, barking, into the middle of the argument. Ron started, Hermione screamed, Sirius ran for it.

"Thanks, Sirius," Harry muttered, watching Hermione walking out of her photograph to inspect the noise and split up the fight.

"Heh," he replied, walking over to and standing next to Harry. Sirius reached over and ruffled Harry's hair. Harry, in vain, tried to smooth it back down a bit.

"Ah, come on, don't straighten it out," Sirius said, messing Harry's hair with both hands this time.

"Hey! Snuffles!" he yelled, trying to pull his hands away in vain. When Sirius was done, his hair was even messier than he had ever seen it. Sirius laughed.

"Reminds me a bit of your dad," he said. "Only he preferred to mess with his hair. Said he looked better that way, like he'd just jumped off a broom. 'Course, he only ever did it for your mum."

"Right," a disgruntled Hary replied, still trying to smooth out his hair, glad the photos had no vocal chords to tell anyone what they had just seen. As it was, Fred and George were pointing and laughing at him, Ginny was giggling, and Snape was watching him haughtily.

"Your dad," Sirius sighed. "Probably the biggest bonehead I ever met. But that's why we got along so well - birds of a feather, right? Remus was the only one with common sense among us, and Peter - well, he was off on every whim James had, whether he sent him bare-handed fishing in the lake or catching shiny things."

Harry laughed. He could see a small, pudgy Peter running around with a jar, trying to catch sunlight or people's belt buckles.

"Got Peter into trouble a lot," Sirius continued, "because he'd keep doing whatever James had sent him to do after dark. He deserved it," he added, somewhat bitterly. Harry secretly wished they'd expelled Peter.

"Sirius," he said, quietly, "how come...how come you're so much more happy lately?"

He had it figured to Sirius not being alone with Kreacher for Christmas, and having Harry around.

"Well, I've company, for starters," he replied, looking Harry in the eye. "It's pretty lonely around here, with only Buckbeak and Kreacher for friends."

Harry looked back at his godfather, straight into the clear grey eyes. "I'm here for you, Sirius. You don't have to go alone."

What happened next was kind of a blur. From what Harry could tell, Sirius had turned around and engulfed his godson in a tight, meaningful hug. Harry blinked, then returned the embrace.

It was the closest to a fatherly hug that Harry had ever had.

After maybe five minutes, Sirius pulled back, releasing him, putting his hands on Harry's shoulders. It was a wordless thank you. He looked into Sirius' eyes, and he could have sworn they had become a little overbright.

"Harry!" Hermione's voice yelled. "Harry, where are you? Come here!" Harry's head jerked in the general direction of the noise. When he looked back at Sirius, his eyes were back to normal.

"I know how Hermione is," he said, tilting his head in her general direction. "I won't keep you."

Harry nodded, then slowly walked to the door and closed it behind him.

Sirius grinned. "That kid," he muttered. Then he walked out of the door and, like his godson, shut the door quietly behind him.

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**_Meh, review if you want. I'm not going to sit here and write a persuasive essay on how you should review it. Wait - maybe I WILL. no, too lazy. uh. JUST DO SOMETHING._**


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